Bestiaire

At a zoo in Quebec, writer/director Denis Côté simply
places his camera to observe humans using animal as artistic subjects, to
observe animals, to observe those who maintain the zoo and to observe humans
observing animals in "Bestiaire."

Laura:
This documentary is no ordinary beast! While some people may find
this series of long shots from a static camera, many framing only part of
the subject, tedious, others will find that Côté's camera provokes
all kinds of questions and ideas. The film is at turns mundane, poetic,
disturbing and comical.

The film begins with close ups of the artists's eyes as they draw their
subject. Over time, the camera moves to longer shots until the subject
- a lifelike stuffed animal - is apparent. No one would ever question
the resulting artworks as being representations of anything but a live animal,
however.

From here, Côté begins to show us long shots of living animals
in their outdoor zoo enclosures. A bison or a llama stares at the camera
and we begin to wonder what is going through the creature's mind or if it
is merely being. Wooly ponies framed low against a high aluminum backdrop
makes one wonder just what the animals, who begin to move in towards the
camera, are seeing, as the manmade backdrop blots out the sky from our point
of view.

We begin to see the zoo interiors and maintenance rituals, then the very
disturbing sights of lions and tigers showing caged syndromes, bashing against
their cage doors. In another shot we see only the legs of a pair of
zebras in a small pen, panicking, and it is almost unbearable that no one
comes to set them free. A zoo employee who we have seen hand feeding
apes sits in an office staring ahead as the clanging of animals penned against
their will reverberates all around her. And then, using the age old
tension buster comic relief, an ostrich head pops up into the frame of the
next sequence, looking quite alien and absurd.

Côté then moves on to document the work of taxidermists and
we are both repelled by the gruesome nature of the art and impressed by
the painstaking craft of it. (Another comment entirely is made by
the inclusion of a pinned up women's underwear ad over the machine beating
the animal hides.) Côté ends with an overcast day at
the zoo, with humans visiting animals seemingly unimpressed with their presence.

"Bestiaire" invites all kinds of reactions, from our urge to anthromorphize
animals to a desire to truly understand them. And whether he had intended
it or not, "Bestiaire" is no friend to the zoo, despite the depiction of
caring workers. You may never regard an animal quite the same way again.